BERLIN (30.04.08)

The pictures illustrating my trip to Israel and Palestina are not part of the reportage I did!

As soon as the bw films processed and the editing done I will share the work with you

ReDrum: happy retangolo behind electronic drums in Haifa :)))

Some have might noticed that the posts about the recent trip to Israel and Palestine disappeared during the last days. After all we've heard from journalists and NGOs I got scared that the security guys at airport would find the evidences to prove that I'm telling lies about the "forbidden" labs in the west bank just googleing my name. In facts almost everybody told us to prepare a lie: "if they ask where you've been never tell a muslim place". So we wanted to go for 5 days Tel Aviv, 5 Jerusalem and 5 Haifa. We were getting pretty nervous. I bought a not so beautiful israeli beer t-shirt wich I wore at 3 a.m after severel hours fighting against sleep on an airport chair. Last rehersal: "tel aviv, jeru, haifa" "tourists"... if they can prove we've been in the west bank we''ll both have to have the same lie "we went to hebron but got scared and returned to israel". If they could prove more "inch'allah". At 4 a.m we were standing in those crowded lines. We also were told that they give you a colored sticker on the passport: green ok, yellow soso... red: not good at all. A girl asked us a couple of routine questions until she saw my iranian visa. Three guys arrived. "why have you been to iran?" "why not?" by the way they were looking at me I went "ok ok no problems... i like photography and travelling and..." A couple of stickers on the bags. But they all were white. Dam'! Pass the bags through there and there, x-ray this and that. Open the bags, slowly. What's this, what's that. Thank you. Good bye. We checked in. The bags were sent. The roll films inside. The backup cds also. I got nervous. It wansn't for shure over! I mean: they didn't even ask where we've been! So we moved on to the boarder police check. Tension in the stomach and almost falling asleep. The girl-cop there checked my passport with a big smile, put a big stamp on it an good bye. We had time to buy a duty free vodka and enter the almost empty airplane. Was that really it? That's it? The tension going through my body was telling me it was not over. But then I fall asleep.

In berlin the police was standing all around the El Al plane with machineguns and a green kinda tank. Feeling sorry for history. A customs officer checked the vodka bottle. We are back home.

8 comments:

Ciao Reto, happy to read you're back home safe. I can imagine - and only imagine, 'cause I've never been there - how sad you can feel. Hope to see you soon somewhere, share a beer and have a laugh. Cheers, and keep trying.